'Get ready to see my face in November when "Endow Manitoba Giving Challenge" week happens, Nov 13th to Nov 20th. Please hold off your generous giving until then and stretch your gift by up to 40%!!! Not sure what I am doing yet but will be posting some updates and encouragements,' shares Killarney Foundation Board member, David Jones.

The Endow Manitoba Giving Challenge is a Winnipeg Foundation incentive where donors can literally stretch their giving dollars during that week. 

From November 13th to 20th, for every $5 donation to any of the Manitoba Foundations, the Winnipeg Foundation and the Manitoba government will each donate $1 to that foundation, (up to a maximum of $2,000 per Foundation from the Province and from the Winnipeg Foundation).

Each year Jones does something 'unique' to bring attention to the Endow Manitoba Giving Challenge that takes place during that week.  He says the Giving Challenge allows Foundations to get quite creative in promoting and raising funds during that time, and they're getting a fairly nice boost as well.

The Killarney Foundation has used different means of sharing their message to hold off on the giving until the Giving Challenge week. "There's been a few stunts done to try to promote it," he laughs, "and people are now fairly aware of it.  In fact, this past summer I heard a few people say, "Yep! We're just waiting for Endow Week to make our contribution!'"

"When the general public is aware of it, that proves that that has been a good strategy," he adds.

If you remember back a couple of months ago, Jones raised funds for the Killarney Foundation by letting his hair grow, challenging local residents by matching dollar for dollar.  Single-handedly he matched the $3,000 raised by the public to make the $6,000 donation.  But it didn't stop there!  At the Killarney Foundation golf tourney at the end of August the hat was passed around to challenge Jones to shave his head, landing the Foundation an additional $1500.

Read about that (and there's pictures) here!

"Personally, the last couple of years I've tried to do something a little odd or weird so I'm going to try and come up with something on the ongoing Facebook stream promoting it.  I'm not quite sure what it's going to be, but it usually gets reposted by the Foundation and gets bantered around a little bit!"

One year Jones golfed as many rounds as he could, and another year he tried to walk 40,000 steps and show the various projects that the Foundation had supported.  He says he's wanting to link it with his 65th birthday this month so keep your eyes on the Killarney Foundation Facebook page!

Jones says the Endow Manitoba Giving Challenge is a very good program that raises awareness and funds for local Foundations.

"It's a great way to leverage donations," he explains. "It's pretty impactful, where your money can go further and do better things, that's really the just of it.  If you can wait for that week to make your donation, it works really well across the province. Any projects that we're already supporting, this just goes to help funding it forward."

Something to note is that all dollars donated through the Endow Manitoba Giving Challenge is undesignated funds, so it has no restrictions on where Foundation can apply the grant money. In its nine years in existence, the Giving Challenge has added almost $9 million to community foundations’ undesignated funds.

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